


No.6 Insomnia

by LiGi



Series: Febuwhump 2021 [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: FebuWhump2021, Gen, He should be sleeping, Insomnia, Poor Merlin (Merlin), Tired Merlin (Merlin), no 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29238492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiGi/pseuds/LiGi
Summary: Febuwhump 2021 day 6 - InsomniaPoor Merlin just can't fall asleep.
Series: Febuwhump 2021 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137632
Comments: 8
Kudos: 50





	No.6 Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by Onehelluvapilot - go check out her febuwhumps too!

Merlin groaned and rolled over again. Why couldn’t he just fall asleep? He’d been tossing and turning for hours now. He glanced at the window, the moon had moved halfway across the sky since he’d first lain down in bed, signalling just how long he had been struggling to fall asleep.

This was the fourth night in a row he had failed to fall asleep. Surely, three nights of barely any sleep and days full of running around after Arthur should have made him tired enough to drop off as soon as his head hit the pillow. But no such luck.

He sat up, punched the pillow and lay back down again.

But he still felt uncomfortable.

He shoved his head underneath the pillow instead, holding it down over his eyes to block out the faint shine of the moon. But after a few minutes he found his face felt too hot, stifled under the pillow and he tossed it aside, staring up at the blank ceiling.

He was so tired. But his eyes wouldn’t close and his brain wouldn’t stop.

He rolled to one side, then the other, achieving nothing except getting his nightshirt twisted around his torso. Groaning again, he sat up, pulled the shirt off and threw it angrily across the room. Then flopped back down again and pulled the blanket over his shoulders.

He squeezed his eyes shut and begged his mind to stop whirring. He tried listing pieces of armour in his head, the monotonous job that usually bored him to tears whizzing through his sleepless mind.

He pictured Arthur standing in front of him, pointing at each bit of armour as Merlin listed it. Helmet, bevor, gorget, pauldron, couter, vambrace, breastplate, hauberk, lames, tasset, greaves…

In his head Arthur was smirking at him. This wasn’t helping.

He thumped his head against the pillow and rolled himself up in his blanket, lying as still as possible and trying to take deep slow breaths. By the time he’d counted a hundred breaths and he still didn’t feel any closer to falling asleep, he wanted to scream.

Giving up on trying to force his mind to sleep, he sat up again, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and putting his head down between his knees, wrapping his hands around the back of his neck. Frustrated tears pooled in his eyes and he dashed them away in irritation.

Whining to himself and scrubbing his fists over his eyes, he stretched his back. It popped and cracked as he rolled his shoulders as well. His knee began jiggling, the restless energy that was keeping him awake forcing itself to manifest.

A shiver shook him, making the fine hairs down his arms stand up. He marched across the room, snatched his nightshirt up and dragged it back on, huffing to himself as he did so. Running his hands through his hair, he trudged over to the window.

Everything outside was quiet. Everyone else in the bloody city was fast asleep. So why wasn’t he? Why was sleep eluding him _again_?

Maybe he’d go and visit the dragon? He scoffed. God, no that wouldn’t help, that would just wind him up more.

He listened to an owl hooting somewhere outside, another returning the call from further away. It was a peaceful sound, soothing. He folded his arms on the windowsill and put his head down on them, letting the cool breeze and serene night time sounds lull him.

But still he didn’t fall asleep.

He pushed away from the window with a growl, pacing the length of his room and back again, his bare feet scuffing the floorboards.

He supposed he could get some chores done at least. Make use of this time if he wasn’t going to sleep. He plodded down the steps from his room into the main chamber, quietly so as not to wake Gaius, who was snoring lightly.

He tiptoed over and pulled Gaius’s blanket up, tucking it gently around his shoulders so the chill of the night air couldn’t get in. He smiled.

Lighting a single candle with an idle wave of his hand, Merlin plopped down on the stool by Gaius’s workbench. It didn’t take him very long to write a list of all of the herbs they were getting low on, making note of which he would need to go out and collect from the woods and which Gaius would need to procure from one of the spice traders in the market.

Then he alphabetised the jars, lining them up on the shelf neatly, with their labels all facing the same direction. Then he carefully moved all of the bowls from the bench and swept the debris of spilt herbs and dirt away. Then he plonked all of the dirty used vials and bowls into the spare bucket of water beside the bench and thoroughly washed them out.

He gave a satisfied smile as he dried them off and neatly stacked them on the corner of the workbench. It was the cleanest and tidiest it had been for a long time. A nice surprise for Gaius when he woke up.

But he was still not feeling tired. In fact if anything he felt like he had gone past the point of tired and was now just strung out and running on frayed nerves. And his mind was still whirring.

He glanced back at the shelf of potions he had just sorted. There was a sleeping potion there he could take, like the one Gaius made for Morgana. He bit his lip. He wasn’t usually keen on the false sense of sleep that a potion achieved. One never felt truly rested after using it. But it would at least shut his mind down for a few hours.

Dithering in front of the shelf for a few minutes, he finally reached up and took down the vial. He poured a tiny splash into a cup and swirled it around.

Breathing a deep sigh, he took the cup back up the steps to his bedroom. Then let out a whimpered sob as he saw the shaft of sunlight streaming across his bed. He’d left the shutters closed in the main room so hadn’t noticed the sun beginning to rise as he’d worked on Gaius’s bench.

But it was well past dawn now. He would be expected in Arthur’s chambers in a short while, with the prince’s breakfast and clean clothes for the day.

Slamming the cup of sleeping potion down on the bedside table, he fell face first onto his bed and let out a ragged scream into his pillow.

**Author's Note:**

> I love any and all comments!!


End file.
